May 16, 2011

‘Tis the sesquicentennial of the War of Rebellion, the War of Northern Aggression, the War for Southern Independence, the War Between the States, Johnny Reb v. Billy Yank … but friend it’s all the American Civil War to you and me, if you’ve heard of it. How grand to see that the Big Apple has done its part, having embraced the cause of Southern cuisine today as it did the slave trade back then. Don’t get me wrong. Jasper loves spicy cornbread and catfish, but not on every other g’damn block. Back in the slave days, New York merchants made a fine dime off the Southern economic paradigm, and the Big Apple rioted against its prodigious black population when Lincoln called up the draft. As the nativist gangs of Civil War New York persecuted free blacks, so too bacon doughnuts suppress civilized life, and ravage the constitution, self-control and self-respect of bourgey BBQ burpers. Today, you might say, trendy traders in fried foodie fat now abuse the rights of the digestive system of Gotham’s hock-hungry.

Reports from the food field note that our favorite Burmese place, and that Vietnamese place down the steps in Chinatown, and Schaffer’s oyster bar off Fifth, they’ve shuttered for good and good luck finding another. But no prob for any new place to chow cheeks and smoked lamb face, with a side of lard ‘taters….

Well, maybe the analogue don’t really hold up. But when the crowd for Grant’s Tomb is deeper than the breadline for Barnard College-grad Martha Stewart’s Shake Shack, I might zip it. After all its only food. Only its food, after all. But the bacon-ated bourgeiose are staking flags in sacred ground. Behold, that cured-piggie cookoffs are giving first prize to Bacon Bourbon Ice Cream. As far it goes, this reporter believes that Pappy van Winkle would not be pleased to share his nectar with a hog’s ass served in Ben & Jerry’s. And that’s the squib.